Digital disruption is here. It is helping some businesses grow and giving sleepless nights to some who know change is coming, but are not equipped to handle it. According to a Dell Technologies and Vanson Bourne study, 78 per cent of businesses believe digital startups will pose a threat to their organisation, either now or in the future. Almost half of global businesses surveyed fear they may become obsolete in the next three to five years due to competition from digital-born startups.

Only a small minority of companies have almost completed their digital transformation. While parts of many businesses are thinking and acting digitally, the vast majority (73 per cent) admits digital transformation could be more widespread throughout their organisation. Some companies are feeling the heat from the pace of change. More than half of business leaders have experienced significant disruption in their industries over the past three years as a result of digital technologies and the Internet of everything.

Lately, India has exhibited strong signs of digital maturity, and that is the opportunity that Dell Technologies is looking to tap into. “As data and information reach the core of everything, and customer experience becomes key, we are faced with a new level of digital disruption that is fear for some, and opportunity for others. For us, it is the latter, because we are more relevant to our customers today than ever before,” says Alok Ohrie, president and managing director, India Commercial, Dell EMC. Present & Smarter Progressive businesses will embrace digital in a big way and that will impact both products and services. Companies will ensure products become smarter, and more services are online and available on mobile devices.

“With a vibrant startup ecosystem, keen government focus on digitally transforming India, and a tech-enabled consumer base, it’s not surprising that Indian enterprises have sensed the urgency to transform digitally. While transformation is not pervasive, it is critical for organisations to follow the leaders and adopt practices that can enable them to ride the wave of the fourth industrial revolution. India has high potential to lead the world in digital transformation, and at Dell Technologies we are in a unique position to accelerate this progress,” says Rajesh Janey, president and managing director, India Enterprise, Dell EMC.

Product and services will both require capabilities that are not only well connected with its ecosystem and deliver on the promise but are also available wherever the consumer is — whether it is desktop or mobile.

While technology is changing at one level, there are changes in human behaviour too. The attention span of people is decreasing. The other factors are that people want to work from anywhere, there is abundance of data and there are over a million cyber attacks every day. Dell’s three-pronged approach in India to leverage the opportunity is by transforming information technology, the workplace and transforming security solutions. “That is our approach to address the future, because that is how we can best help our partners and clients,” says Rajesh Janey.

Practical InnovationTransformation of this kind is enhancing customer experience. “In the last two decades, the software writing capability in businesses had diluted. Before that, there used to be software resources who actually wrote the codes. The way the industry moved towards customisation or productisation, that capability diminished. For digital transformation, there is a need for that capability to be brought back. Through our family of businesses, we can do that,” notes Ohrie.

One of the advantages that India has is that legacy IT is still minimal in the country. India skipped the mainframe and super mini wave of the 80s. The timing is just right for Indian businesses to take the big leap in deploying future tech. This has successfully happened in mobile space already. “India is leading in the digital maturity curve. Our services accelerate the pace of coding, and once that happens, the demand on IT infrastructure, number of customers, data-generating spots or nodes, and the likes will shoot up. We are a single window engagement that will take away all issues of integration of different vendors and simplify the process,” says Ohrie.

Dell Technologies is talking of datacentre modernisation by making it software defined, or enhancing platform as a service or deploying technology that can be scaled up and scaled out much more. Business analytics and data will become integral part of any transformation as work space transformation becomes critical. The demand for any IT service from any location and on any device will need device transformation first to perform actions in a secure environment. And all this will have to be achieved not only through cost efficient solutions but also with reduced complexity.